JCC Discounting bad sequels from canon

There are two ways to deal with mediocre follow-ups: balking at misguided creative decisions and wasted opportunities or flushing them down the memory hole altogether. I usually opt for the latter approach.

Example: Having been disenchanted with nearly every facet to The Dark Knight Rises, I leave the narrative with the Part II conclusion, whereupon Batman strives to fight the Joker's legacy from the shadows. Lonely, hunted, but resolute.

What are your departure points in genre film?

 

There were no sequels to Jaws.

 

You mean Canon Discontinuity?

With the Alien movies, I like to ignore Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, and imagine the story ending with Aliens, and hoping someone gets the bright idea to to do a new Alien movie that follows from Aliens, ignoring those films, about an adult Newt taking up the mantle of Xenomorph-fighter from Ripley.

But it'll never happen.....

 

There were no Star Trek films in the original Star Trek universe after Star Trek: First Contact

 

Rocky V never happened. Rocky defeated Communism and then whatever the hell happened in the last one happened. There was no in between.

Amazing.

 

There are only 3 Indiana Jones movies.

 

Staying Alive comes to mind. The Two Jakes. And the Star Wars prequels--especially the prequels. Some would say The Godfather III but I don't remember hating it. Oh yeah: Robocop 2.

 

The Matrix: Revolutions never happened. The Matrix: Reloaded may not have happened either. It depends on the day.

 

Two Cameron picks for me. I discount all Alien films after ALIENS and all Terminator films after T2.

Quality is one reason, but also because both stories, IMO, END. To me both sequels did a good job saying all that there was to say about each film. T3 is not only crap, but also ruins the overall idea set up by the two films. Which was that the hero's were in charge of their fate, were able to change the future, and that a Cold Blooded Machine was able to understand concepts like love. T2 is very heavy on ideas like Sara becoming more Terminator while the Terminator became more human. It touched on just about everything needed to bring the ideas in the first film full circle.

Any sequel is gonna be nothing more than a rehash of what came before it. Which T3 and even Salvation to an extent prove.

As for Aliens, Ripley gets revenge, learns to like a Robot, and is able to find some hope in living a new life with a new daughter. The sequels just went through the motions, and didnt' have anything new to say because everything had already been said. Of course you could give arguements to what might have been. Scripts for Alien 3 and Alien 4 both had EARTH showdowns, and maybe you could say that the storyline called for atleast some kind of Ultimate Earth showdown with the Aliens. To me, you still don't need them.


EDIT: Indian Jones should have ended after Last Crusade. You don't continuie a story after the character rides off into the sunset. Sorry.

And Matrix said all it needed to say in one film.

 

The good thing about bad sequels is that they exist whether or not you believe in them.

 

Hostel III

 

I think we can all agree that Police Academy: Mission to Moscow also never happened. Really, when you have six near perfect movies, why make a seventh?

Amazing.

 

Why is it good that a bad thing exists?

 

PRENNTACULAR

 

It was a Neil Tyson quote I edited to fit this thread... 'good' is an integral part of the quote I didn't want to get rid of.

 

The Two Jakes would have been a perfectly nice little movie if it just hadn't been a sequel to ******* Chinatown, maybe the most perfect movie of the 1970s.

And I'm with drg4 on The Dark Knight Rises.

 

Going by the actual movie timeline and not real time... All the X-Men movies after First Class.

 

This whole school of thought that TDKR was terrible is starting to get annoying.

 

Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season

 

I'm still upset that History of the World Part II NEVER happened!

 

Wait.... wait that happened?

 

Fixed.

 

It happened in the books. Newt and Hicks -- Alien fighters.


But after Alien3 killed them both

Spoiler

(at least until Gearbox software got involved....)

, the books were republished as two new characters....Corporal Wilks and Billie.

 

I know this is difficult news for some around here to handle, but some of us actually enjoyed TDKR. Shocking!